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Magic & Manners

It is a truth universally accepted that well-bred members of Society are not beleaguered with magic.

For Elsabeth Dover and her sisters, that truth means living in a perpetual state of caution, never using their sorcerous gifts in public...

Atlantis Fallen

Book 1 of the Heartstrike Chronicles

A city hidden for five thousand years.

A man so ancient his early history is lost to time.

A woman who has nothing to lose...

Urban Shaman

Joanne Walker has three days to learn to use her shamanic powers and save the world from the unleashed Wild Hunt.
No worries. No pressure. Never mind the lack of sleep, the perplexing new talent for healing herself from fatal wounds, or the cryptic, talking coyote who appears in her dreams.
And if all that's not bad enough, in the three years Joanne's been a cop, she's never seen a dead bodyâbut she's just come across her second in three days.
It's been a bitch of a week.
And it isn't over yet.

Stone's Throe

JUSTICE WILL BE DONE!
Some girls languish under the weight of a broken heart, but not Amelia Stone. After a youthful encounter with the villain known as le Monstre aux Yeux Verts, Amelia is left with regrets - and a stalwart determination to right the wrongs of the world.

Bewitching Benedict

Benedict Fairburn does not quite need his ailing great-aunt's fortune, especially since he'll have to marry to get it. His family, however, thinks otherwise - as do many of the eligible ladies in London - and the pressure is mounting. An embarrassment of attentions fill Benny's time, but the young lady he prefers roundly dislikes him...

Fancy Gym: Day One

Well, my first personal trainer workout at the #fancygym this morning went really poorly.

I arrived slightly early and the PT was 15 minutes late. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure he was *only* 15 minutes late because I asked more than once about where he was. On top of that, there’s a verbal quirk in Irish English that probably comes from something in the Irish language, where people often end a sentence with “so” or “like” or “okay”. Normally I don’t mind that, but the guy who was trying to cover for the late PT ended everything not only with “okay”, but the upward inflection that made it sound like a question. He was not actually asking a question, but every time he said it I wanted to snarl that no, it was *not* okay, because I’m paying money for this service and I expect it to be delivered on time.

So I was really not predisposed to appreciate the workout by the time the guy arrived, and then it was…not a workout I expected. It wasn’t a bad one, except the back extensions…thing…it’s not a machine, it’s something you step into and do body weight with…makes my knees feel pretty awful, so I’m not gonna do that, obviously. It’s all a body weight workout except one set with weights for shoulders, and it’s fine, if not particularly inspiring. And it might have been perfectly inspiring if I wasn’t pissed off to begin with, IDK.

Then he was like “so the cardio, do you like treadmills or crossfit” and I, who had already told two people at this gym, both of whom had written it down, that I won’t use those machines, said, pretty fucking flatly at that point, “I will not run or crossfit. I will row or cycle,” and he gave me a rowing set that I may or may not do. I mean, I’ll row, but I don’t know that I’ll do the thing he wants me to, because, AS I EXPLAINED TO THEM ALREADY, I’m already (theoretically) biking there and back again, which is about all the cardio my fat ass self can handle right now.

And I don’t know if it’s because this whole thing had already made me really cranky or what, but there are a lot of Very Fit Women at that gym, sufficiently fit as to make me feel quite self-conscious, which is pretty unusual for me, so that didn’t improve my temper any.

And I walked home so I could figure out the shortcut Ted and Henry told me about, because I knew where it came out but not where it started, and I wanted to know that so I could *actually* bike. It was a pleasant enough walk, except I’d already just done a workout for the first time in A VERY LONG TIME and it took most of an hour to walk home (which is why cycling is the only really viable option for getting to this gym), so I’m pretty wrecked.

Anyway, usually working out makes me pretty cheerful, but I’m a goddamn crankypants right now.